As I noted in a previous post, there are some who take the Church’s rejection of socialism, collectivism, and communism, as if it were a blanket affirmation of pure capitalism. That is as misleading as thinking that the Church’s preferential option for the poor entails full political support of the welfare state.

Neither are correct, and both violate the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which again states that “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good” (Catechism, 1883). Read more

http://catholiclabor.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CLN-logo_565x100.jpg00Bill Droelhttp://catholiclabor.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CLN-logo_565x100.jpgBill Droel2012-10-07 14:50:022016-04-16 08:39:31The Church and Capitalism: What Subsidiarity Tells Us

As I noted in a previous post, the Catholic principle of subsidiarity asserts that “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good” (Catechism, 1883).

Fine. But what exactly does that mean in regard to our own social and economic situation?

Again, it means, first of all, that the state should not violate the “moral space” of its citizens, a space that is also economic. And that is what too many state social programs, in fact, do. Read more

On the other, there are those who reason along these lines: “Since the Catholic Church is against socialism and communism, therefore it is unabashedly for capitalism. Government should therefore stay out of economics — as should the Church — and leave the whole money-making thing to market forces.” Read more

This morning, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who heads the House’s budget committee, spoke at Georgetown University, and once again he offered a defense of his budget and his vision for America.

That vision, as we’ve discussed before, involves the demolition of the Medicare guarantee and a big redistribution of the benefits of economic growth upward. In Ryan’s world, you’re on your own—and that means your access to health care and education, among other things, would be sharply constrained by your wealth, even more so than it is today.

We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few. Read more

The Wisconsin Republican and architect of the GOP’s budget plan has spent a month arguing that his party’s proposals to cut programs for the needy while sparing the Defense Department and not raising taxes on the wealthy are in line with the social justice teaching of his own Catholic Church.

Undaunted, Ryan returned to the fray this week. He penned a column on Thursday (April 26) in the conservative National Catholic Register saying that the House-passed budget reflects “Catholic social truths.” That same day, he visited Georgetown University, the flagship Jesuit school and decidedly hostile terrain for Ryan’s strain of economic libertarianism, where he argued for his budget’s priorities despite vocal and visible protests by faculty and students. Read more